Mayer Brown is set to launch an office in Duesseldorf as the firm moves to close its Berlin and Cologne operations.

The new office will open at the start of 2012, at which point Mayer Brown's existing Cologne and Berlin offices will merge into the Duesseldorf outfit. The move will mean Mayer Brown will have two offices in Germany – Frankfurt and Duesseldorf.

Cologne partner Christof Gaudig will relocate to the city to take up the role of German global integration partner, with responsibility for managing the relationship between Germany and the other offices in the firm's network.

Berlin partner Friedrich Merz will head up the German corporate and securities practice.

German managing partner Joerg Wulfken said: ""Duesseldorf is one of the leading industrial and financial services centres in Germany. It is also a stepping stone for the Asia community in both Germany and Europe, with the largest Japanese community in the region, which works well with our Asia practice.

He added: "The reason for merging the Berlin and Cologne offices into Duesseldorf is simply that Cologne is close to Duesseldorf, and even though we do a lot of government work, this does not require a presence on the ground in Berlin."

The Duesseldorf office will initially focus on corporate, real estate and antitrust work. Mayer Brown has six partners and six associates in Cologne and three partners, one counsel and five associates in Berlin.

Mayer Brown announced in June this year that it is set to launch an office in Singapore, with the relocation of Hong Kong projects partner Kevin Owen to head up the new office, which is due to join later this year.

Click here for more on Mayer Brown's planned Singapore launch